ERM . . . BJORK?

Heralding an album as ‘the most commercial thing Björk has ever done’ is really a bit like declaring the new David Lynch movie ‘his most coherent narrative ever’. For the last decade she has been making the most unashamedly artful and peculiar, if compelling music around. Anyone buying this release expecting Debut should contact their lawyer and sue the ass off the record label for false advertising. If, instead, you feel the urge for factory-driven beats, massed horns moaning like beached whales, brittle piano nursery rhymes, militaristic techno cries to ‘raise your flags’, brutal electronics burning and sparking, symphonies of live ship horns, topped with a joyously overwrought, doleful duet between the lady of the house and the all new duke of strange, Antony ‘no Johnsons’ Hegarty then fill your boots. The overall effect is bewildering, impatient, inconsistent, unpredictable and even fun. Commercial? No. Fascinating? In places, yes. Don’t believe the hype.